North East MP Ronnie Campbell has been devastated to find his dreams of being linked to the famous Scottish clan of his surname appears to be groundless.

North East MP Ronnie Campbell has been devastated to find his dreams of being linked to the famous Scottish clan of his surname appears to be groundless.

The Blyth Valley Labour backbencher employed an expert in family trees to trace his Caledonian roots only to find all his ancestors appear to come from Newcastle.

Mr Campbell was sure the family name suggested a link to one of the bravest and most war-like clans of the Scottish nation.

But evidence he's just received, going back to the middle of the 1800s, is quite clear his relatives were firmly based in the North East's fair city.

His most prominent relative was one Thomas Campbell, a cloth dealer and tailor from St Nicholas Church Square.

He was sufficiently prosperous to leave &#xA3;900 when he died in the early 1900s, worth tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds today.

Mr Campbell, a former miner, said: "I am now trying to find out what happened to all that money. It would come in pretty handy."

The nearest he can find to a Scottish connection is that some of his relatives used to come down from Scotland with captured and harpooned whales to the big factory processing plant in Tyneside.

As he reflected: "It's not exactly Braveheart, is it?"

But Mr Campbell takes some consolation from his disappointment saying: "At least it shows I'm a proper true born and bred Geordie."

And, indeed, from the point of view of his Northumberland constituency, the ancestral memories of Scottish border raiders pillaging the area are considerably nastier than anything anyone called Campbell from Newcastle ever did!

NEWCASTLE North MP Doug Henderson is awaiting with interest the results of tomorrow's local elections in his constituency.

It's not just to see whether Labour have won but to find out what the effect of an experiment in postal voting has on the turnout.

The former minister has been alarmed at the low number of voters going to the polls in council elections in recent years.

He was pleased when the area was chosen for a trial of all-postal voting.

Mr Henderson said: "I'll be fascinated to see if it works. I'm in favour of anything that increases the turnout and so far the indications ar eit will do so.

"If it makes a significant difference I think it should be extended nationwide."

THERE are new doubts on Tyneside about Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn's soccer sanity.

Local people are already concerned about his determination to support Sunderland.

But now he's shown signs of defecting from the Red and Whites to Chelsea.

He's one of more than 20 MPs to sign a motion congratulating the London club's Gianfranco Zola for playing 300 games for the Blues and saying he's one of the finest ever overseas players in English football and a wonderful example to all for his sportsmanship and professionalism.

Magpie supporter Ronnie Campbell shook his head and said: "I've always been a bit worried about Stevie and his support for Sunderland.

"I didn't think he could go any lower but if he is now backing Chelsea it's a very sad day."

SUNDERLAND MP Chris Mullin has warned the Government over the possible cost of introducing identity cards.

The chairman of the Commons home affairs committee said in the Commons that the price of computers for the system could reach &#xA3;3 billion or &#xA3;4 billion.

He asked Home Office minister Beverley Hughes: "Will you give an undertaking that any estimates received from IT companies of the cost of introducing ID cards will be treated with great scepticism in the light of previous such estimates?"

Ms Hughes said the 2,000 responses to a consultation on this issue were 2-1 in favour of an ID scheme and promised the cost of IT and computers would be kept to a minimum.